Are Nontimber Forest Products the Antidote to Rainforest Degradation? Brazil Nut Extraction in Madre...

WorldDevelopmentVol. 31,No. 11, pp. 1873–1887, 2003� 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

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lddev.2003.08.001
doi:10.1016/j.worwww.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev
Are Nontimber Forest Products the Antidote

to Rainforest Degradation? Brazil Nut Extraction

in Madre De Dios, Peru

JAVIER ESCOBAL and URSULA ALDANA *GRADE (Grupo de An�aalisis para el Desarrollo), Peru

Summary. — This study explores the relationship between poverty and Amazonian forestmanagement by Brazil nut harvesters in southeastern Peru. Although the poor rely more uponnatural resource-based income than the rich, wealthier households use more forest wood and landthan poorer ones. Contrary to the belief that exploitation of nontimber forest products can alleviatedeforestation, this study finds that seasonal Brazil nut extraction is accompanied by unsustainableforestry activities during the rest of the year. Only those who find employment in activitiesunrelated to forestry manage to break the link between poverty and environmental degradation.� 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Key words — rural poverty, Latin America, Peru, Amazonian forest, environment, deforestation,

Brazil nut

*The authors will like to recognize the assistance ofVictor Agreda and Jorge Torres during the fieldwork

phase. They are grateful for funding from the Regional

Fund for Agricultural Technology (FONTAGRO), and

for useful suggestions from Scott Swinton, Germ�aan

Escobar and two anonymous reviewers. Final revision

accepted: 20 June 2003.

1. INTRODUCTION

In the framework of the poverty–environ-ment debate, it has become axiomatic to arguethat sustainable income-generation is neededto break the link between poverty and envi-ronmental degradation. Income-generatingopportunities could be sustainable nonagricul-tural activities or activities associated with thesustainable exploitation of forest resources.Several authors (e.g., Kant, Nautiyal, & Berry,1996; Ricker, 1999) have emphasized nontim-ber forest products (NTFP) as a central com-ponent in the sustained management of theforests. Peters, Gentry Alwyn, and Mendelsohn(1989) have shown that the potential profit-ability of NTFP from one hectare of forestcould exceed the profitability of the woodproduction from the same area.Authors such as Pinedo-Vasquez, Zarin, and

Jipp (1992) have pointed out that such calcu-lations have limited value, because they areoften based on average yields, rather than in-formation from the complete NTFP produc-tion cycle. Nonetheless, many academics anddevelopment agencies continue to promote‘‘sustainable’’ forest exploitation. Few studiesexplore the indirect environmental impact ofthese income-generation strategies. Assies(1997) explicitly recognized that an activity that

187

generates no direct negative environmentalimpact can still have indirect influence on nat-ural resources via changes in labor use.The exploitation and processing of Brazil

nuts have been proposed as ways to avoid thedestruction of Peru’s Amazonian rainforest.Despite widespread publicity, this proposal hasreceived no ex ante evaluation of the directionand magnitude of environmental changes thatcould occur due to increased Brazil nut harvest.Under what ecological and socioeconomicconditions it is possible to develop a sustainableNTFP industry? Is the sustainable productionof these products a viable means to break thevicious cycle between poverty and rainforestdegradation? We approach this subject from thebelief that while NTFP can become an impor-tant income source, by itself it is unlikely to el-evate any given demographic group above thepoverty level on a sustainable basis. Indeed, ifNTFP leads to indirect negative environmental

3

WORLD DEVELOPMENT1874

impacts (e.g., due to workers residing in for-est), this strategy would be inappropriate forsustainably elevating the incomes of the poor-est.The rest of this article is divided into six

sections. In Section 2, we present the concep-tual model upon which the final analysis isbased. Section 3 contains a presentation of thesocioeconomic characteristics of the Brazil nutharvesters and a description of their manage-ment of the forests resources. Section 4 exam-ines the determinants of the income-generatingstrategies of the Brazil nut extractors and thedeterminants of income earned in each of theiractivities. Section 5 looks at the determinants oftheir forest management practices, not only theBrazil nut harvest, but also other forest-relatedactivities, such as agriculture, timber extrac-tion, and hunting. Section 6 draws conclusionsfrom which policy implications can be derived.

2. THE MODEL

In order to estimate the relationships amongasset ownership, income-generation strategies,forest management practices, and natural re-source impacts, a formal conceptual frameworkis helpful. The works of Reardon and Vosti(1995) and De Janvry and Sadoulet (1996) andDuraiappah (1998) provide a useful startingpoint. The objective of this conceptual frame-work is to understand the relationship betweenasset ownership and natural resource degrada-tion, based on the household economics litera-ture that views the household as a joint unit ofproduction and consumption.The household is assumed to maximize the

profits subject to several constraints, including:(a) a liquidity constraint, (b) production tech-nologies for each activity, (c) exogenous pricesfor tradable goods, (d) an equilibrium conditionfor subsistence producers, and (e) an equilib-rium condition for family labor. The model’sendogenous variables are thus: the quantity ofpurchased consumer goods, the quantity ofpurchased inputs, the change in asset stocks,and the amount of family labor assigned to eachactivity. The exogenous variables are: thehousehold’s demographic characteristics, theprices of traded goods, the initial stock ofwealth, remittances received by the household,the availability of family labor, and the struc-ture of property rights over assets.The first-order conditions for maximization

in this type of economic model generate a sys-

tem of output supply and input demand func-tions that allow family labor to be optimallyassigned to different activities. The reduced-form equations for key variables in the pro-duction process are presented below.

Equation for purchased inputs:

iij ¼ fijðZ;w; p;R; T ; L;AÞ ð1Þ

Equation for family labor employed in eachactivity:

lj ¼ gjðZ;w; p;R; T ; L;AÞ ð2Þ

Equation for quantity produced in each acti-vity:

qj ¼ hjðZ;w; p;R; T ; L;AÞ ð3ÞEquation for net income from each activity:Y

j

¼ mjðZ;w; p;R; T ; L;AÞ ð4Þ

The notation uses Z for household demo-graphic characteristics, w is a vector of inputprices, p is a vector of consumer good prices, Ris the initial stock of wealth, T is the level oftransfer payments received by the household, Lis the family labor time available, and A is avector of productive assets associated with thedifferent activities which the household mayundertake.Lopez (1986) showed that if the value of

labor time differs between on-farm and off-farmuses (e.g., due to utility differences or searchcosts), then the shadow price of farm labor isdetermined endogenously within the house-hold. If so, this implies that the production andconsumption decisions are nonseparable, sohousehold characteristics affect labor allocationto alternative productive activities––hence theinclusion of household demographic charac-teristics in the reduced-form equations above.In this type of model, the producer allocates

resources to alternative productive activities,according to their expected profitability. In thissense, an increase in the assets specific to oneactivity increases the resources allocated to thatactivity and decreases the levels of resourcesassigned to other activities. The estimation ofthe reduced-form equations indicates the de-terminants of the household’s income-genera-tion strategy. It is possible to identify as‘‘inputs’’ the natural resource managementpractices linked to each of the income-gener-ating activities. These practices are determined

ARE NONTIMBER FOREST PRODUCTS THE ANTIDOTE TO RAINFOREST DEGRADATION? 1875

by the profitability of the investment and bytheir economic feasibility. Feasibility is deter-mined via the restrictions on household familylabor and liquidity.

3. THE BRAZIL NUT HARVESTINGACTIVITY

(a) Data

This study focuses on the families of Brazilnut (Bertholletia excelsa H.B.K.) harvesters inTambopata province in the Department Madrede Dios, Peru, in the extreme southeast of theAmazon River basin. Approximately 1000families in the province are directly involved inharvesting Brazil nut, but the total number ofpeople involved directly or indirectly in theBrazil nut activity is between 15,000 and 20,000people, 1 or roughly 22% of the total popula-tion registered in the Department of Madre deDios. Brazil nut production is one of the mostimportant NTFP in the area. The existence of adeveloped international market for Brazil nutssets it apart from all other NTFP as an alter-native income source.To evaluate the relationship between poverty

and environmental management, a sample ofBrazil nut harvesters in Tambopata provincewas interviewed during 2000. The principalBrazil nut groves were identified by the De-partment of Madre de Dios, according to theirmeans of access (via river or highway). TheMinistry of Agriculture of Madre de Dios hadrecords of 970 legal concessions of Brazil nutgathering rights. Based on the volume of re-corded harvests from each concession, a prob-abilistic, representative sample of 140 nutharvesters was drawn to assure a sample meanwithin a 95% confidence interval of the popu-lation mean harvest from each concession. Theaverage concession has an area of 1,000 ha thatproduces 9,500 kilos of Brazil nuts per year.Although the concessions are granted for oneor two years, they are renewable, and theaverage concession holder has held tenancy for16 years.The Brazil nut gatherers of Madre de Dios

are overwhelmingly poor. Over three-quarters(76.4%) of those interviewed were poor, basedon Peru’s measure of unsatisfied basic humanneeds. This figure far exceeds the 61% ofPeruvian rainforest inhabitants who are poorand the 54% of all Peruvians who are poor(Instituto Cuanto). The sample households

maintain a highly diverse mix of productiveactivities. While income from Brazil nut gath-ering accounts for over 53% of total income,agriculture (16.5%) and ‘‘other sustainable ac-tivities’’ (17.8%) are important complementaryincome sources. ‘‘Other sustainable activities’’include salaried and nonsalaried jobs in thenearest city (PuertoMaldonado), most of whichinvolve commerce, transportation, and smallindustry. None of these jobs is directly or indi-rectly related to the exploitation of the Amazonforest. Additional minor income-generatingactivities include timber harvest (6.6%), cattleraising (2.2%) and other extractive activities,notably hunting, fishing and gold mining.

(b) Income-generation strategies and forestresource management

Rainforest sustainability may depend asmuch on income-generation strategies as it doeson the specific management practices of theBrazil nut gatherers. Various income-generat-ing activities can harm the rainforest, includ-ing agriculture, timber felling, and hunting,as well as other nonsustainable activities likecattle farming, fishing and gold mining. Slashand burn agriculture is responsible for 80%of all Amazonian deforestation in this area(INRENA, 1994).Timber extraction actually causes less defor-

estation than agriculture, because it is doneselectively. Nonetheless, timber harvest hascaused the near extinction of certain species likemahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) and cedar(Cedreka odorata). By the year 2000, the pro-liferation of small forest usufruct concessionshad made sustainable forest management im-possible. Likewise, the indiscriminate huntingof some species has endangered the survival ofsome animal species which have disappearedfrom parts of the forest (Ascorra, 1997; Ter-bogh, Emmons, & Freese, 1986). Huntingpressure is especially great in the outskirts ofthe city of Puerto Maldonado (Brack & Yanez,1997).The measurement of environmental impacts

in the study database has certain limitations. Itcontains data from only one point in time,whereas panel data would be most appropriatefor adequate measurement and attribution offorest management practices. Likewise, the ex-ternal impacts on other resource users of indi-vidual producer activities cannot be measuredby interviews with the individual producers.


In spite of these limitations, the study offerssome measures that may explain environmentaldegradation in the study area.Given that hunting, farming, and timber ex-

traction are greatest near Puerto Maldonado, ithas been possible to estimate environmentalimpact according to distance from the city. Forexample, Brazil nut trees yield better on aver-age in areas more distant from Puerto Maldo-nado, where the forest has been less altered byfarming, hunting, and forestry. Likewise, thereis greater biodiversity and much less defores-tation. In fact 36% of respondents whose Brazilnut groves are relatively far from PuertoMaldonado, believe that there is little or nodeforestation, compared with only 6% of thosewhose Brazil nut groves are located near to thecity. There is a widespread perception the yieldsof Brazil nuts have declined substantially overthe past 25–30 years.Apart from Brazil nuts, other natural rain-

forest service flows are also in decline. Fully85% of the nut gatherers believe that huntingand fishing have become less productive, and68% say that the harvest of timber species hasgreatly diminished. Although two-thirds findthe timber industry at fault, half of those in-terviewed considered the Brazil nut gatherers’own activities to be the most damaging to theenvironment.In spite of this acknowledgement, there is

little ‘‘environmental consciousness’’ in thearea. Although 60% acknowledge having othervaluable timber species in their Brazil nutgroves, such as mahogany, tornillo (Cedrelingacataeniformis) and moena (Aiba Amazonia),only 5–10% admit to timber extraction. This isnot due to regulations or recognitions that theforestry concession does not belong to them,but rather due to a lack of equipment orworking capital. On the other hand, small farmplots continue to proliferate, especially in thearea along the highway, due to constant mi-

Enterprise Jan FebBrazil nut gatheringBrazil nut processingAgricultureCattle raisingTimberOther sustainable activities

aIncluding commerce and transport.

Mar A

a

Figure 1. Seasonality of labor use among 140 Br

gration to the area from the Peruvian Andes.Finally, the levels of deforestation are veryhigh. Nearly 48% of the Brazil nut groves isseriously deforested (in other words, land usechanges have resulted in the loss of over 20% offorest cover). An added 25% of the area isslightly deforested (having lost 5–25% of forestcover).Different household income-generating strat-

egies seem to generate different natural resourcemanagement practices in the Amazon rainfor-est. The households of Brazil nut gatherers canbe differentiated according to the number ofanimals hunted for food, the number of treesfelled to construct the infrastructure for theBrazil nut gathering activity, and whetherhouseholders replant Brazil nut trees or openroads to facilitate the gathering of Brazil nuts.Agricultural households can be differentiatedby the number of hectares cleared for farming.This distinction is important, since some studiesindicate that households that practice agricul-ture more intensively (more income per hect-are) cause less deforestation (Bedoya, 1990;Yanggen, 2000).

4. DETERMINANTS OFINCOME-GENERATION STRATEGY

As noted above, the respondents are engagedin a variety of other income-generating activi-ties in addition to Brazil nut gathering. Al-though the extraction and processing of Brazilnuts is profitable, it is not profitable enough tolift households out of poverty; 95% of thesehouseholds would remain below the povertylevel if they depended only on income fromBrazil nuts.Gathering Brazil nuts is a seasonal activity.

As shown in Figure 1, the Brazil nut harvest isperfectly complementary throughout the yearwith agriculture and timber extraction. The

May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Decpr

azil nut gatherers, Madre de Dios, Peru, 1999.


seasonality of Brazil nut gathering and the needfor more income constitute the opportunity andthe incentive for households to complement theBrazil nut harvest with other activities.Given that households are involved in di-

verse income-generating activities, to know thatan individual activity by itself is environmen-tally sustainable is not sufficient to concludethat its practitioners are behaving sustainably.Also germane is whether or not that activitycomplements or substitutes other nonsustain-able activities. The partial correlation coeffi-cients between types of income indicate thatBrazil nut income is uncorrelated with agricul-tural income, so the one does not diminish theimportance of the other. By contrast, incomefrom the other sustainable activities is nega-tively correlated with agricultural income(q¼)0.26), indicating substitution. However,partial correlation coefficients are only prelim-inary evidence, for they tend to gather severaleffects: the substitution effect of resource allo-cation; the existence of common assets in theproduction function; and the positive correla-tion between the specific assets of each activity.A major objective of the regression model be-low is to establish the degree complementarityor substitution between income-generating ac-tivities.This section is divided into two parts. The

first part explores the relationship between the‘‘environmental sustainability’’ of the income-generating strategy and the level of poverty. Inother words, we attempt to discover whether itis true that the poor rural households are morereliant upon forest-based activities. The secondpart analyzes the determinants of each specificincome-generating strategy.

(a) The relationship between poverty andincome-generating strategy

The relation between poverty and income-generating strategy can be understood via twocomplementary approaches. The first analyzesthe relative importance of income from differ-ent activities. The second analyzes the absolutelevels of income obtained from each activity.Table 1 shows the importance of each type ofactivity according to the level of poverty andownership of key assets. The poverty indicatorseparates the extremely poor (i.e. income in-adequate for market basket of basic foods)from the mainstream poor with income belowthe national poverty line (approximately US$2per capita per day). Critical assets and the

measures used include education (years school-ing), public infrastructure (residence in cityof Puerto Maldonado), and the number ofBrazil nut trees to which each extractor hasaccess.Table 1 shows that agricultural activity rises

with increasing poverty. Conversely, timberand other sustainable activities decrease withthe level of poverty and greater education oraccess to public services. There is also a positiverelationship between income level and sustain-ability in that the groups engaged in ‘‘othersustainable activities’’ are less likely to be poor(55% versus 76% for the total sample). Equallyinteresting, among those who include both ag-riculture and timber cutting in their incomestrategy, the rate of poverty is lower (60%) thanin the group that includes only agriculture(96%). Apparently, in this setting, the poorexert more pressure on the rainforest as farmersthan as lumberjacks.The absolute level of income (Table 1) mat-

ters just as much as the distribution of incomebetween sources, since those who rely relativelyless upon a specific activity do not necessarilyearn less from it. For example, it is reasonableto expect that the wealthier households willearn a higher agricultural income in spite ofrelying less on that activity for income. At thesame time, the environmental impact of anactivity depends more on its absolute scale thanits relative importance to the household.The evidence shows that the wealthier (or less

poor) households surveyed clearly use forestresources more intensively (Table 1). Thewealthier households earn more income fromevery forest-based enterprise except agricul-ture. 2 Poor households exert greater pressureon the forest as farmers than as lumberjacks.The poor’s pressure on the rainforest comesfrom their greater probability of farming ratherthan higher earnings from farming given thedecision to farm. Of course, these patterns saynothing about the sustainability of forest re-source use, which will also be affected by thespecific natural resource management practicesused, whether by the rich or the poor. The de-terminants of these practices will be dealt within Section 5.

(b) Determinants of income-generation strategy

This section examines the determinants ofeach income-generation strategy. Following theconceptual framework in Section 2, an at-tempt has been made to identify the assets that

Table 1. Engagement in income-generating activities by poverty status and asset access, 140 Brazil nut gatheringhouseholds, Madre de Dios, Peru, 1999

Poverty status Whole

sample

Access to key assets

Non-

poor

Moderately

poor

Extremely

poor

Over 10

years

education

Reside in

Puerto

Maldonado

Over 500

Brazil nut

trees

Importance of each income source (%)

Brazil nut gathering 47 58 56 51 42 43 53

Other sustainable

activities

35 20 17 28 37 39 26

Agriculture 2 12 15 7 4 3 3

Timbering 12 8 8 10 12 11 10

Other unsustainable

activities

4 2 4 4 4 5 8

Average income level (US$)

Brazil nut gathering 9,942 5,163 1,771 3,918 4,699 5,130 6,795

Other sustainable

activities

10,192 3,570 1,662 4,899 6,546 6,200 6,308

Agriculture 1,557 2,061 686 926 1,252 1,076 990

Timbering 7,809 2,184 1,566 3,632 5,309 6,860 5,233

Other unsustainable

activities

6,250 1,420 673 1,755 3,196 5,443 5,020

Total 21,014 8,864 3,150 7,617 11,082 11,979 12,938

Participation (%)

Brazil nut gathering 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Other sustainable

activities

71 50 33 43 63 74 54

Agriculture 25 50 69 57 39 30 38

Timbering 32 33 16 21 24 19 25

Other unsustainable

activities

14 11 18 16 14 12 21


condition the household’s choice of a specificenterprise. The assets that were treated as exo-genous variables intentionally omit investmentsthat predetermine the strategy used by thehousehold, like the number of chain saws or thenumber of hectares planted. Two sets of modelsare estimated to find the determinants of: (i) theincome earned in each type of enterprise, and(ii) the probability of engaging in a given typeof enterprise.The determinants of income-generating ac-

tivities were estimated in a two-step procedure.In the first step, probit models assess determi-nants of the probability of participating in aspecific activity. These models are based onoutput supply Eqn. (2). The second step usesleast squares regression to assess determinantsof income obtained from each activity, giventhe decision to participate in them. The ratio-

nale for this separation is to accommodate thepossibility that exogenous assets could presentopposing effects in both types of estimations.Similar variables are included in both the

models of enterprise choice and income deter-minants. The enterprise choices include agri-culture, timbering, Brazil nut extraction, and‘‘other sustainables.’’ The equations estimatedare the reduced forms corresponding net in-come for each activity. As shown in equations(2) and (4), the exogenous variables includeprices, household assets, family labor and liq-uid assets. The liquidity variable was omittedfor lack of data, so the coefficient associatedwith household assets could include liquidityeffect, since these are positively correlated.Since this is a cross-sectional sample and allBrazil nut extractors face the same relativeprice structure, the price variable has been re-


placed with one for distance to the Brazil nutgrove, which captures transport cost effects oninput and output prices. All variables reflectincome and assets belonging to the household,not just the owner of Brazil nut gatheringrights.The variables included in the regression

models are listed with descriptive statistics inTable 2. The table divides assets between exo-genous and endogenous categories. The exo-genous assets are those that take more time tobe modified and thus could be considered asdeterminants of those assets which are as-sumed to be endogenous. The total number ofBrazil nut trees was treated as exogenous,because interviews about Brazil nut grovepurchases revealed that 80% of householdsreported purchasing extensions not because ofliquidity, but rather because of a boundaryrestriction.

Table 2. Summary of main va

Dependent variables

Income variables

Brazil nut income (US$)

Other sustainable income (US$)

Agricultural income (US$)

Timber income (US$)

Have sustainable income (binary)

Have agricultural income (binary)

Have timber income (binary)

Endogenous assets

Agricultural land area (ha)

Chain saws (number)

Value of Brazil nut assets (US$)

Independent variables

Human capital assets

Mean educational level of both spouses (1–5)

Family members (number)

Experience of Brazil nut collector (years)

Age of household head (years)

Have traveled abroad (%)

Natural resource access assets

Producing Brazil nut trees (number)

Distance to Brazil nut grove (h)

Social capital assets

Belong to producer organization (binary) (%)

One spouses is migrant (binary) (%)

Residence in Puerto Maldonado (binary) (%)

Stability of relationship with nut merchant (years)

Send or receive money transfers (binary) (%)

The probit models of probability of partici-pation in each activity include all samplehouseholds. The least squares regressions ofincome determinants do not, however, includethe households that received no income fromthe activity being considered. In order to ex-tend the results from these regressions to all thehouseholds in the sample, it would be necessaryto correct for selection bias governing whichhouseholds engaged in the activity. Unfortu-nately, it was not possible to identify anyvariable that determined participation but notthe amount of income obtained in each activity.Hence, the results from the income regressionsare not extended to generalize for the case ofnonparticipant in the activity analyzed.The results of the participation and income

regressions for each income-generation acti-vity are shown Tables 3 and 4. The Brazil nutactivity is omitted from Table 3, because all

riables in regression model

Mean S.D.

3777.9 4305.1

2105.0 4396.0

681.1 851.4

752.3 2,428.8

43% 50%

71% 45%

21% 41%

2.0 2.7

0.4 0.7

4441.0 6639.0

3.2 1.4

6.7 2.2

16.1 11.8

48.1 13.6

44 50

356.6 227.6

9.3 9.2

44 50

61 49

32 47

3.1 5.1

26 44

Table 3. Determinants of income-generation strategies among Brazil nut gathering households, probit regression results, Madre de Dios, Peru, 1999

Explanatory variable Has planted field Cuts timber Other income-generating activities

dF =dx Robust S.E. dF =dx Robust S.E. dF =dx Robust S.E. Mean

Mean educational level of both

spouses

0.301 0.163� 0.340 0.132�� 0.110 0.046�� 3.160

Educational level squared )0.054 0.022�� )0.044 0.018�� 0.021 0.007�� 12.000

Family members 0.016 0.019 )0.012 0.013 )0.019 0.026 6.771

Reside in Puerto Maldonado )0.267 0.111�� )0.127 0.066� 0.319 0.120�� 0.313

Number of producing trees 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000� 0.000 0.000 354.588

Distance to Brazil nut grove )0.001 0.005 0.001 0.004 0.007 0.005 9.361

Experience as Brazil nut gatherer )0.004 0.006 0.001 0.004 )0.004 0.006 16.076

Belong to producer

organization

0.122 0.091 0.011 0.074 )0.122 0.103 0.420

One of the spouses is a migrant )0.012 0.080 0.001 0.067 )0.197 0.102� 0.618

Age of household head )0.001 0.020 0.053 0.019�� 0.023 0.026 48.267

Age squared 0.000 0.000 )0.001 0.000�� 0.000 0.000 2518.100

Years with same nut merchant 0.016 0.013 0.003 0.006 0.014 0.009 3.168

Traveled abroad )0.010 0.084 0.094 0.077 0.090 0.107 0.435

Send or receive money transfer )0.171 0.096� )0.010 0.066 0.126 0.121 0.260

Sample size 131 131 131

Wald v2 35.22 22.94 35.59

Log likelihood )52.165 )55.328 )67.868Prob> v2 0.001 0.061 0.001

Pseudo-R2 0.272 0.170 0.243

* Significant at the 10% level.** Significant at the 5% level.*** Significant at the 1% level.

WORLDDEVELOPMENT

1880

Table 4. Determinants of earnings among Brazil nut gathering households, least squares regression results Madre de, Dios Peru 1999

Explanatory variable Other sustainable activities Agriculture income Brazil nut income

Coefficient Robust S.E. Coefficient Robust S.E. Coefficient Robust S.E.

Mean educational level of both

spouses

)4000.67 2353.86� 457.03 258.81� 639.68 277.86��

Educational level squared 627.74 319.62� )73.20 37.66�

Family members )128.62 284.91 31.73 39.53 )141.52 135.42

Reside in Puerto

Maldonado

3447.07 1058.89�� )49.91 211.45 )45.50 923.77

Number of producing trees )2.88 2.19 0.43 0.42 5.28 1.31��

Distance to Brazil nut grove )26.54 62.59 2.08 6.88 )20.58 27.02

Experience as Brazil nut gatherer )34.76 63.56 )3.02 9.07 )13.38 31.25

Belong to producer

organization

628.64 1487.32 124.81 215.24 )659.36 781.71

One of the spouses is a migrant 1705.82 983.16� 228.80 175.42 )93.83 622.09

Age of household head )136.08 259.73 21.23 26.43 24.95 125.77

Age squared 2.03 2.81 )0.25 0.27 0.14 1.32

Years with same nut

merchant

151.65 126.32 6.80 14.83 76.97 64.61

Traveled abroad 2090.46 1224.80� 94.86 210.54 1925.35 722.60��

Send or receive money transfers )1976.97 1092.53� )158.53 211.80 1565.99 808.24�

Constant 9336.32 6730.80 )624.79 708.19 )1483.57 3394.03

Number of observations 52 96 130

F ð14; 37Þ 3.69 1.09 4.65

R2 0.57 0.12 0.36

Prob> F 0.00 0.38 0.00

Root MSE 3374.30 689.18 3212.60


ARENONTIMBERFORESTPRODUCTSTHEANTIDOTETORAINFORESTDEGRADATION?

1881


respondents participated, and the timberingactivity is omitted from the income determi-nants model because the number of samplehouseholds engaged in timbering was less than30. The following paragraphs examine the ef-fects of individual determinant variables inboth regressions for all three activities.The educational level was been included in

both linear and quadratic forms in order to testwhether the educational effect is on activitychoice and income earned is nonlinear. Thehypothesis of nonlinearity is based on previousstudies (e.g., Cotlear, 1989), which found theeffect of educational level on agricultural pro-duction not only nonlinear, but also discon-tinuous, such that certain minimum levels werenecessary for the adoption of specific techno-logical innovations. Because of possible dis-continuities, we defined the education variableby levels (primary school incomplete, primarycomplete, secondary incomplete, etc.) and notaccording to years of study.The two education variables (average level of

the spouses and average level squared) werehighly significant and nonlinear. Examinationof their signs reveals that educational level hasopposite effects on the probability of partici-pation in different activities. Education tends toincrease the likelihood of engaging in agricul-ture or timber harvest up to the level of in-complete secondary schooling and decrease itat higher levels of schooling. On the otherhand, education increases the likelihood of en-gaging in other sustainable income-generatingactivities at a rate that increases with greaterschooling. These results indicate that increasingaccess to pre-secondary education implies atransfer of resources from the ‘‘sustainable’’activities toward agriculture or timber cutting;the contrary is true of increasing access tosecondary and post-secondary education.Likewise, the effect of education on income is toincrease it at a decreasing rate with education,but to increase income at an increasing ratewith other sustainable activities.Residence in Puerto Maldonado has an effect

similar to education, lowering both the prob-ability of engaging agriculture and timber har-vest and income earned from them, whileraising the probability of participating in othersustainable activities and income earned fromthem. The opposite signs between agriculture/timbering on the one hand and other sustain-able activities on the other suggest substitutionbetween these categories of income-generatingactivities.

The physical asset embodied by the numberof Brazil nut trees does not affect the probabi-lity of engaging in agriculture but increase theprobability of timber harvesting. The markedseasonality of the different enterprises (seeFigure 1) creates a temporal complementaritybetween the Brazil nut harvest and agricultureor timbering, so there is no substitution inresources allocated to these activities. Theother sustainable activities that require laborthroughout the year compete for household re-sources with agriculture and timber cutting,creating a substitution relationship.These results suggest that promoting non-

timber forest product income in the form ofBrazil nut gathering could actually cause moredeforestation, since the number of Brazil nuttrees in the concession is positively associatedwith the probability of engaging in timber har-vest. This finding is consistent with evidencefrom local interviews, indicating that Brazil nutincome helps households to meet the high levelsof working capital needed to engage in timbercutting. The high working capital requirementsfor timber cutting also explain the significant,positive effect of the age variable, as householdswith older heads have had more time to accu-mulate working capital. This same need forsignificant working capital to get into timberharvesting explains why timbering was not as-sociated with poverty in Table 1.The negative association between income

level and the probability of engaging in agri-culture is also elucidated by these results. Ap-parently households engage in because theylack the necessary assets to develop ‘‘othersustainable activities,’’ such as access to theinfrastructure of Puerto Maldonado or educa-tion at the secondary level or higher. Given thatmost of the ‘‘other sustainable’’ activities in-volve commerce or transportation, residence inPuerto Maldonado both facilitates access toconsumers, public services and information,lowering the costs of providing business andtransport services. The positive relationshipbetween educational level and other sustainableincomes only for relatively high values of theeducation variable is consistent with previousstudies, such as Saavedra (1997).These results help to explain the nonlinear

relationship between the degree of poverty andthe agricultural income of farming householdsamong the Brazil nut gatherers. The agricul-tural income earned by the moderately poor isgreater than the agricultural incomes of thenonpoor and the extremely poor. The poverty–


agriculture relationship appears to be condi-tioned by the nonlinear link educational leveland agricultural income of farming households.According to Table 4, agricultural incomeincreases with lower levels of education anddeclines with higher levels, due to resource re-allocation away from agriculture by more ed-ucated households.

5. DETERMINANTS OF FORESTMANAGEMENT PRACTICES

ASSOCIATED WITH BRAZIL NUTGATHERING

Having identified the factors determining thechoice of income-generating activities, the nextstage of analysis is to examine how these ac-tivities affect the natural resource sustainabilityof the rainforest. Our objective is to quantifythe impact on forest resources of both Brazilnut gathering and complementary activities.The natural resource sustainability measuresanalyzed here include reforestation practices,clearing tracks to the groves, hunting, the useof wood for construction of the infrastructurefor the Brazil nut activity, 3 and the intensity ofsoil resource exploitation for agriculture.The relationship between natural resource

management practices and poverty categories isnot linear, as shown in Table 5. The extremepoor and the nonpoor use wood in the con-cession and the forest soil for agriculture lessintensively than the moderately poor. Similarly,the extreme poor and the nonpoor hunt moreand spend less effort on reforestation 4 androad clearing. While the moderately poor aremore dedicated to these sustainability-enhan-cing practices for the Brazil nut grove, they alsoconsume much more wood for the constructionof concession infrastructure and more land areafor agriculture.Two categories of conditioning factors criti-

cally affect households’ propensity to engagein natural resource management practices: (a)

Table 5. Natural resource management practices by povMadre de Dios

Poverty

category

Practice

reforestation (%)

Forest road

clearing (%)

Nonpoor 30.3 84.8

Moderately poor 33.3 94.4

Extremely poor 12.4 77.5

Mean (whole sample) 19.3 81.4

access to public assets (availability of highwayaccess and the distance from the Brazil nutgrove to Puerto Maldonado) and (b) the per-ceived security of property rights over its forestconcession, which is strongly tied to the num-ber of experience in managing the Brazil nutgrove. 5 More experienced Brazil nut gatherersmore freely exercise their usufruct right to theconcession and also engage in more practicesthat protect the forest resource base. By con-trast, the less experienced Brazil nut gatherers,lacking secure rights to their Brazil nut groves,would be more inclined to exploit intensivelythe grove and its flora and fauna so as to earnthe most possible in a short time, even whenthis activity could endanger future resourceproductivity.The probit results on determinants of en-

gaging in reforestation highlight the positiveeffects from (i) years of experience in Brazil nutgathering (a proxy for tenure security), (ii)residence in the city of Puerto Maldonado(where Brazil nut seedlings are available fromnongovernmental organizations) and (iii) dis-tance to the Brazil nut grove from PuertoMaldonado (which directly affects reforestationcosts). As discussed in Escobal et al. (2000),several sustainability problems facing thePeruvian Brazil nut forests are strongly linkedto the difficulty of limiting access by outsidersto the forest resources. Encroachment uponforest concessions, agricultural invasions, andboundary disputes with other Brazil nut con-cessions could be reduced if the structure ofproperty rights were more clearly defined. Theimpact of clearer rights would increase bothinvestment and the Brazil nut gatherers’ in-comes, as well as encourage more sustainableforest management practices. At present, theimperfect and costly substitute for clear con-tractual rights to a forest concession is to havedecades of usufruct tenure in the Brazil nutgrove. Brazil nut gatherers with more senioritywho coexist better with the forest and its in-habitants, manage to minimize their disputes

erty category among Brazil nut gathering households,, Peru, 1999

Wildlife meat

hunted (kg)

Timber felled

(m3)

Agricultural planted

area (ha)

52.6 29.5 1.2

32.8 227.8 5.6

55.1 60.2 2.5

51.6 74.5 2.6

Table 6. Determinants of natural resource management practices associated with Brazil nut gathering, 140 households, Madre de Dios, Peru, 1999

Explanatory variables Reforestation

(probit)

Road clearing

(probit)

Hunting (kg)

(tobit)

Timber extraction

(m3) (tobit)

Agricultural income

(per ha) (tobit)

Coefficient Robust

S.E.

Coefficient Robust

S.E.

Coefficient Robust

S.E.

Coefficient Robust

S.E.

Coefficient Robust

S.E.

Mean educational level of

both spouses

0.050 0.115 0.132 0.132 16.36 15.54 14.99 17.77 281.90 139.69��

Educational level squared )0.010 0.016 )0.012 0.018 )2.30 2.15 )2.30 2.47 )54.50 20.10��

Family members )0.015 0.013 0.019 0.016 )0.64 1.86 1.41 2.09 4.06 15.53

Reside in Puerto Maldonado 0.158 0.100� )0.239 0.115�� )24.27 9.85�� )8.10 10.93 )137.81 82.64�

Number of producing trees 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000�� 0.07 0.02�� 0.03 0.02 )0.31 0.17�

Distance to Brazil nut grove )0.010 0.005�� )0.006 0.003� 2.70 0.43�� 0.58 0.51 1.23 3.71

Experience as Brazil nut gatherer 0.007 0.004� 0.006 0.004 0.07 0.47 0.13 0.55 )0.66 3.97

Belong to producer organization )0.007 0.058 )0.050 0.075 1.64 8.40 )11.51 9.47 205.60 74.32��

One of the spouses is a migrant 0.011 0.067 0.059 0.073 )4.94 81.0 )8.47 9.26 115.04 69.60

Age of household head 0.011 0.012 )0.001 0.015 )1.28 1.70 0.21 1.94 15.73 14.91

Age squared 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.01 0.02 0.00 0.02 )0.23 0.15

Years with same nut merchant 0.002 0.005 )0.009 0.007 )0.67 0.78 1.98 0.83�� 7.86 6.39

Traveled abroad 0.234 0.075 0.108 0.069 7.13 8.36 )10.24 9.53 )22.10 72.17

Send or receive money transfers 0.039 0.075�� 0.014 0.075 )11.39 8.88 1.49 9.97 )142.38 76.28�

Constant 23.02 50.30 077 5679 )226.05 431.54

Number of observations 135 135 134 134 134

Wald/LR v2(13) 29.70 24.46 48.89 18.27 48.10

Log likelihood )48.46 )52.46 )605.75 )610.89 676.73

Prob> v2 0.01 0.04 0.00 0.19 0.02

Pseudo-R2 0.22 0.19 0.04 0.02 0.03

Observations truncated at zero 19 21 39.00


WORLDDEVELOPMENT

1884


with others. A preferable alternative would be aconcession contract that consolidated forestmanagement rights. Of course, by itself, thatsolution would be sufficient to permit the Brazilnut gatherers income levels adequate for sus-tainable forest management.The construction of tracks or access roads to

the Brazil nut groves within each concessionrepresents resource protection activity. Thesetrack decrease pressure on the forest by reduc-ing the time that Brazil nut gatherers spend inthe forest while also increasing Brazil nut pro-duction. By raising the nut gatherers’ incomesfrom Brazil nuts and reducing time spent in theconcession, access roads decrease the incentiveto engage in other nonsustainable environmen-tal activities such as timbering, hunting andfishing. The probit results presented in Table 6indicate that the probability of building accessroads increases with the number of Brazil nuttrees in the concession, but declines with resi-dence in Puerto Maldonado and distance of theconcession from the city.The tobit regression results on hunting show

that the weight of meat hunted (for food) in-creases with the number of Brazil nut treesmanaged and distance from Puerto Maldonado(Table 6). Ascorra’s (1997) findings suggest,however, that these results may be due to de-creased hunting effort in larger Brazil nut con-cessions and greater distance from PuertoMaldonado. Apparently access to more forestresources that permits greater resource exploi-tation can occur without endangering forestsustainability.Although the regression on determinants of

lumber harvest was insignificant, the raw quan-tity of wood being removed is striking. Basedon sample data, the Brazil nut gatherers cut150,000 cubic meters of lumber annually. Usingfigures from Barrantes and Trivelli (1996), thisimplies deforestation of 5,000 ha, or 0.54% ofthe area in Brazil nut concessions.The clearing of land for farming is another

forest management practice. In Peru, there aregeneral studies that analyze the determinants ofenvironmental practices carried out throughagriculture in the Amazon basin. Two casestudies found that the intensification of agri-culture generated lower levels of deforestation(Bedoya, 1990; Yanggen, 2000). On the otherhand, Boserup (1981) demonstrated that in-tensification occurs only when populationgrowth creates enough stress to precipitate in-tensification. Among the Brazil nut gatherers,there is an inverse relationship between income

per hectare and the number of hectares planted.The current study uses the number of hectaresplanted to annual crops during the currentperiod as an approximation of the number ofhectares deforested.The determinants for agricultural income per

hectare appear in Table 6 as an indicator ofintensification. Here we can observe that therelationship between education and agriculturalincome per hectare is similar to the relationshipobserved between education and total agricul-tural income. This suggests that as agriculturalincome rises, so too does level of agriculturalintensification. Further evidence is the fact thatthe correlation coefficient between agriculturalincome and the income per hectare is 0.53,while the correlation coefficient between theagricultural income and the number of plantedhectares is 0.09.Finally, the results clearly show that the op-

portunity cost for those resources assigned toagriculture is greatest for the more highlyeducated, due to the greater earnings they canobtain from ‘‘other sustainable activities.’’ Thiscould explain the greater level of intensificationfor those at higher educational levels. On theother hand, social capital assets also matterto agricultural income per hectare, includingparticipation in producer organizations andtransfers (of goods or money) with relativeswho live outside the region.

6. CONCLUSIONS AND POLICYRECOMMENDATIONS

This study explores the relationship betweenpoverty and natural resource managementamong the Brazil nut gatherers of Peru’s Am-azon rainforest. Although Brazil nut gatheringcontributes significantly to the rural income ofthe group studied, most of the households relyon a much broader natural resource base thanBrazil nut trees alone. This study shows a clearnegative relationship between natural resource-based income and total income; the poor de-pend more on natural resources than thewealthy. Nonetheless, the demand for naturalresources continues growing with income, sowealthier households use natural resources, butmore intensively than poorer households.For the poor of the rainforest to overcome

their poverty depends on developing other rel-atively profitable, sustainable enterprises. Intheory, the gathering and processing of non-timber forest products such as Brazil nuts


would be one of these enterprises. This studyshows, however, that Brazil nut harvesters ex-ercise indirect pressure on the Amazonianrainforest. The hunting of wildlife during theBrazil nut harvest, for example, contributes tothe endangerment of such species as the reddeer (Mazama americana) and the collaredpeccary (Tayassu tajacu). Brazil nut gatheringtakes place over just three months; during therest of the year it is temporally complementedby nonsustainable activities such as farming. Insome cases, Brazil nut gathering actually allowsaccumulation of the capital needed to invest intimber exploitation. Hence, only the poor whofind work unrelated to the forest can succeed inbreaking the link between poverty and forestresource degradation.Consistent with other studies, this study

identifies the critical role of education forbreaking the link between poverty and envi-ronmental degradation by providing access toother relatively profitable, sustainable activi-ties. But education has nonlinear effects, mak-ing it a two-edged sword. At low levels (e.g.,primary and early secondary school), moreeducation induces poor households to transferresources from sustainable activities into agri-culture and timber harvest. By contrast, athigher levels (secondary school and beyond),more education induced households to transferresources away from agriculture and timberinginto activities considered sustainable, such ascommerce and transport.Public services that enable the development

of medium-sized cities such as Puerto Maldo-nado also fulfill a critical role by creating jobsin the service sector. Living in a city like PuertoMaldonado has a similar effect to increasedsecondary education: It decreases the likelihoodof engaging in agriculture and timber cutting,while increasing the probability of other sus-tainable activities. The direction of the effects

analyzed suggests substitutability between ag-riculture or timbering, on the one hand, andother sustainable activities on the other.The Brazil nut harvest is a seasonal activity

that is perfectly complementary in time withagriculture and timbering, although competingsomewhat with cattle raising and other sus-tainable activities. The seasonality of Brazil nutgathering and need for income during the restof the year induce households to complementthe Brazil nut gathering with other activities. Itis not surprising that Brazil nut gathering failsto replace agriculture and timber harvesting inhousehold resource allocation, while othersustainable activities do substitute for them.Indeed, the year-round labor requirements ofthe sustainable activities cause these activitiesto compete with agriculture and timbering inhousehold resource allocation.Although the most important factor in

breaking the link between poverty and rain-forest degradation is the income-generatingstrategy, there exists room for maneuver toencourage more rational forest use via envi-ronmentally sustainable practices. We havehighlighted the roles of education and tenuresecurity as preconditions for the adoption ofmore sustainable forest utilization. For agri-cultural intensification, which reduces the forestarea needed for agriculture, the strengtheningof the producers’ organizations is also a criticaldetermining factor.Tenure security is a critical determinant of

reforestation. The inability legally to limit third-party access to their forest concessions exposesBrazil nut gatherers to encroachment byothers, agricultural invasions, and boundarydisputes with other Brazil nut concessions.More clearly defined property rights could in-crease investments and Brazil nut income, aswell as encouraging the use of forest conserva-tion practices.

NOTES

1. A more detailed description of the study area can be

found in Escobal, Aldana, and Agreda (2000).

2. The household level data show no marked tendency

for higher income households to specialize in sustainable

activities.

3. People who go into the forest for nut gathering

usually spend several months in the area. They use wood

to construct �payoles,’ a platform with elevated floor and

palm thatch roof for storage of Brazil nuts and used as

temporary shelter for nut collectors.

4. Estimates from the sample data indicate that refor-

estation increases the average number of productive

trees by 4% annually.

5. Escobal et al. (2000) found that 20–30 years of expe-

rience managing a Brazil nut grove is practically equiv-

alent to a property right to exclusive and permanent use.


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